I think that the problem we have is an opportunity gap, not an income equality gap. And I think that one of the big discussions in conversations over the course of the next two years in national politics is going to be, do you want mediocrity or do you want greatness? You want income equality? That's mediocrity. Everybody can have an equal mediocre salary. That's what we can afford. Or do you want the opportunity for greatness? ...

Greatness is going to be based on your intellect, your hard work, your creativity. And government can play a role in helping to create that opportunity. But not in being the perpetual referee of what sounds like a fight between my 13-year-old son and my 10-year-old daughter: "You did this for him, that's not fair. Well, that's not fair, I want this to be fair." I grew up in an America that said, "Life isn't fair."

Yes, you heard right: Chris Christie is confusing income equality with salary equality. He thinks Democrats want every employed person in the country to be paid exactly the same salary.

Then he had the unmitigated gall to compare struggling families, people who are hurting, with petulant children, in effect blaming them!

To paraphrase Keith Olbermann, "That man is an idiot."

Here's a bonus video from The Rachel Maddow Show, just in case you're not up on the latest in the Bridgegate scandal:

The New Jersey State Republican Party is now trying to raise money on the Bridge scandals. Specifically, they are trying to raise money by saying that news organizations should not be covering the scandal, and that's the real problem here.

Seriously, I'm not kidding... This is from the Star Ledger... They're quoting a fundraising email that the New Jersey Republican Party has sent out asking people to pledge $25 a month to the New Jersey Republican Party because of the Bridge scandal....

"Send us money because MSNBC keeps reporting on this story"??

To the people of Fort Lee, to the people who missed the first day of school or the first day of work, to the people who were late to appointments or their jobs by hours, for not just one day but for four days, to the person having a heart attack and the four people who were injured and needed to be moved by ambulance after a car wreck, to the parents of a missing child, to all those people who found that police and first responders could not get to them those days, to the people of Fort Lee and the hundreds of thousands of other New Jersey residents and commuters who had four days of this gridlock inflicted on them-- on purpose-- thanks to still-unexplained orders that came out of Gov. Christie's office, to all of the hundreds of thousands of people who were hurt here-- on purpose-- the New Jersey Republican Party would like you to know that the real outrage here is that this TV network [MSNBC] is reporting on what happened and trying to figure out the answers, but the Christie administration still won't provide.

They want you to know that we're the real outrage, and that they're the real victim. Not you.

They want the people of New Jersey to stand up! Not against this kind of corrupt and abusive outrageby their government. They want the people of New Jersey to stand up against us covering the story.

With the state of the economy as it is today, stimulus is a good thing. Spending works when done right, but austerity is not what we need right now. Yet Republicans insist on austerity measures which, as we’ve witnessed and is painfully evident overseas, are one big fat fail.

“They do not want him to succeed. There`s no question about that. They are assert that spending more money is wrong. We really need to be spending a lot more money, fixing up our infrastructure and creating jobs and making the economy run better.“

Now David Cay Johnston is making it easy on you by publicly giving out his phone number. Yes, you had a WaWa touchtone keypad epiphany, but even you know how to work a phone, right? Or do you have underlings do that for you, too?

Romney's answer to any question about his taxes has basically been, "Trust me." But the guy's running for President, for Pete's sake. He owes us more than that. [...]

The standard answer of the Romney campaign to all this is that he always followed the law. As Jon Stewart had to point out since the major media did not, Romney did plenty to affect the law he was supposedly "just following," including his defense of the "covered interest" tax loophole that let him treat his fees at Bain as if they were capital gains (15% tax) rather than wages (35% tax). All perfectly legal and as Johnston points out in his book by that name, that is the real scandal. [...]

The easiest way for Governor Romney to put to rest what his campaign described to Shaxson as "unfounded allegations and insinuations" would be to release his tax returns. Yet he has not done so and shows no sign of changing his mind.

So, Willard, what's your dirty little tax secret? America can't simply "trust" you at this point, because you have yet to be straight with us.